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Smart parking solution

Located in the Republic of Tatarstan, Innopolis is the first Russian city for IT professionals which started urban life just five years ago. It was created literally ‘from scratch’. Its entire infrastructure, economy, education and services were built based on high-tech principles: to innovative and to serve the people.

Innopolis Mayor Ruslan Shagaleev, matching his city, is just as young, energetic and focused on the introduction of high-tech innovations for the benefit of the city and its residents. He loves Dahua Technology’s Smart Parking Solution, achieving the digital transformation of the city’s municipal parking lot.

The municipal parking lot in the city used to be a regular underground parking lot. In order to get inside, residents either manually pressed a button at the door or swiped an access card on the card reader. No other services were available.

High-efficiency entrance control

The automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) application for licence plate recognition replaced the previous manual parking access control, greatly improving the efficiency of the process. The Dahua ANPR camera installed at the entrance of the parking lot can accurately capture and recognise licence plates of pre-registered residents or visitors on the ‘allow’ list set by the user. Once the information is matched, the garage door will open accordingly.

Underground parking is an enclosed area that provides very limited space for vehicle manoeuvring. For the Innopolis parking lot, the Dahua smart system guides and informs the driver about free parking spots in advance. This is done through two-level navigation: LED signs and parking spot detection cameras.

Two-level navigation is realised using both software and hardware, including cameras equipped with a colour indicator. To put it simply, if the place is free, it is highlighted with a green light, and a red light if it is occupied. The same principle applies to the central traffic lane. A green light indicates the availability of parking spots in the next lane. If all car parking spaces in the lane are occupied, the red light turns on.

In addition to colour, the indicator also shows the number of available parking spaces in each direction. Based on a built-in AI algorithm, the number of available parking spaces in each zone is automatically calculated. The results are displayed on the screen. The search is also simplified by the light indication of parking spot availability.

In total, seven display colours are supported, and the parking lot owner can customise them independently. For example, if you need to highlight the locations of VIPs, you can assign them blue. And if a parking space is occupied, their location can be highlighted in yellow.

Finding a car

The Dahua Smart Parking Solution also used several find-your-car terminals for customers to easily locate the parking location of their vehicles. This can be done using touchscreen terminals located in different parking areas. By entering a licence plate number, the system can locate the vehicle and provide its images to confirm. If a person does not understand where the specified point is, the system will show him/her on the screen the best route from the terminal to his/her car.

Each detector is also a video camera that can be used in conjunction with storage devices to provide customers with comprehensive video surveillance of what is happening in the parking lot. Lost objects in the parking area, crowds of people and illegal parking behaviours are also automatically detected. Its integrated surveillance functions include real-time video recording with preview and playback, which can provide relevant evidence in case of disputes or incidents.

The protection of personal data, databases of licence plates, etc. are responsibilities of the parking lot owner. One feature of the Dahua Smart Parking Solution is a single centralised software package that is installed on one server, making the system more secure. At the same time, access to the video surveillance data is only allowed for people with IT system administrator authorisation.

The integration of the Dahua Smart Parking Solution with the payment system is planned to be implemented in the next stage of the project. In general, the issues of monetisation of parking spaces are in the mainstream of interests of the city authorities. The Dahua Smart Parking Solution supports various types of parking spaces, allowing usage of different payment options. The parking operator can also utilise the parking data of various vehicles to develop, for example, a premium service strategy with reasonable rates.

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